


Scars

by CannibalKats



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Parent Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:31:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4594695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannibalKats/pseuds/CannibalKats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was originally part of the 30 day Inquisitor meme that happened pre-release.  My canon Inquisitor Roxy Adaar, this is her backstory with a brief uncredited cameo from a very young Iron Bull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

Roxy has scars, nicks and grazes from battle, scuffs from her childhood, but the ones that mean something? Those are on her hands, her feet, her mouth. Roxy has the ‘gift’ of magic, though it’s not a gift she uses. Not since the day they came, not since she lost her mother, not as long as it was her fault.

The Ben-Hassrath had come once before but they’d never been caught. Her grandfather had friends, he had places to hide, he’d been one of them and one or two of them still respected him enough to give them a head start. But her grandfather was dead and there was no one to warn them when the Qunari came through the trees. No sympathy for the girl with a bow pointed at them, no leniency for the girl lighting the arrows she fires at them with magic.

Her mother doesn’t let company fight for them, not even when she sees the collar on her daughter. She orders them away, speaking a checkpoint in code. It’s far and the terrain is hard but their people understand. The recent recruit among the captors does not go unnoticed.

They wait until they make camp to sew her mouth. The spy is gentle as he removes her collar and leads her to tent where a woman waits for her. Her mother nods as they pass, and she would have missed it if not for the fact that every movement her mother made had purpose. The last thing she hears her mother say is her given name as the needle pieces through her lips.

“Rasazili!” Her mother shouts her name like a warcry, and the way her father echoes it is like a prayer.

She acts on instinct, a child used to playing soldier. She rears back on the stool and she can hear her lips tear; she lunges forward and breaks the woman’s nose with her forehead. She pulls mana from the fade and molds it into fire, leaving a trail of burning tents and supplies towards the sound of her parent’s shouts.

They’re surrounded; she charges and tries her best to remember how to form mana into force. She doesn’t remember what happens after that but it’s not long before she’s being pulled behind her father, she’s screaming for her mother but no one is answering and her father is shouting, he’s yelling at her, pulling her through brush and trying to get her to be quiet.

“It’s you she’s dying for!” He yells at her. “If you don’t shut up you might as well have held the blade.”

He’s never raised his voice to her, the tone alone could have quieted her but the words break her heart. She keeps her mouth shut even as the blood dries and forms a seal. She doesn’t speak for days as she follows her father through brush and brooks. She makes no sound as he cleans her lips and binds her burnt hands.

They trek for weeks barefoot. They’d been firing arrows into floating targets dangling their feet in the river when the ambush occurred. It’s over a month before he lets them stop in a town and she has no idea where they are. Her feet are torn, her hands are still raw, and she’s started to wonder if the pain in her lips will ever fade. She desperately longs for a map, for a mage, for her wondering company of misfit mercenaries who would have some idea of what to say to her father. She settles for watching the stars at night.

Morning comes with an elf who heals her feet with magic, gives her a cloak, a pair of shoes and a jar of salve, she speaks quietly when she instructs on how to use it and make more. Her accent is Dalish and Roxy quietly chastises herself for doubting her father.

It’s two more weeks before they find their people. Her injuries reduced to dully aching scars. Scars that remind her that monsters are real. Scars that remind of the people she couldn’t save. Scars that remind her what she’s capable of surviving.

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


End file.
